North Melbourne Heritage Protections Tightened

As one planning scheme amendment to introduce more heritage protection for properties in North Melbourne was adopted by the City of Melbourne, another amendment was being set out for consultation. 

The council voted unanimously to adopt the amendment to the Melbourne Planning Scheme. 

Amendment C403 incorporates a review of all heritage-listed properties in North Melbourne.

It includes the creation of six new heritage overlays, changes to the listing status of 127 properties and the removal of 22 properties from the heritage register. 

An independent planning panel recommended additional changes to remove 135-141 Abbotsford Street and 35-37 Canning Street from an existing heritage overlay and include them as two new individual heritage overlays.

It also proposed removing 435-437, 439-441, 443, 445 and 447 Flemington Road from a heritage overlay, changing the building categories of the St Aloysius school building to non-contributory and retaining an individual heritage overlay for 480-482 Abbotsford Street.

Submissions from that consultation period were considered by the independent planning panel, including the addition of 8 Jones Lane to the register. 

▲ The 1880s warehouse at 8 Jones Lane, North Melbourne, was a suggested addition to the heritage review.

Victorian planning minister Sonya Kilkenny will now be the determining authority on the amendment and has the power to determine what its final form will be. 

The City of Melbourne and its Future Melbourne Committee has been working through several heritage reviews and their associated amendments to the planning scheme after finding large gaps in what was being protected as built heritage within the city. 

Prior to this, the last known heritage review work was undertaken in the 1980s and did not include many post-war buildings. 

Many districts within the city have now had heritage reviews completed or under way. 

The Future Melbourne Committee also considered community submissions for Amendment C426 which encompasses a heritage review of South Yarra properties. 

It voted to request that the planning minister convene an independent planning panel to consider the submissions and the current form of the amendment. 

There were 41 submissions made to the Amendment C426 for the South Yarra heritage review. 

▲ The Hoddle Grid Heritage Review included the Lyceum Club building.

Heritage reviews are created by councils as amendments to the relevant planning scheme and then opened to community consultation before the planning minister convenes independent panels to assess submissions and then, if supported or adopted by councils, makes the final determination on approving the amendments. 

Heritage reviews can have a major impact on development with regard to which properties can be protected, demolished or adaptively retrofitted, developed and reused.